Five artists shortlisted for John Moores Painting Prize 2023

Five artists have been shortlisted for The John Moores Painting Prize 2023 - and this post:

• tells you who they are - and provides a judges summary plus a profile
• shows you the image of the painting which has been shortlisted
• shows you images of the selectors and the selection process
• and finally.... you get my prediction as to which work will win the £25,000 First Prize and a Solo Exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery in 2025.

The John Moores Painting Prize is the UK's most well-known painting competition, bringing together the best contemporary painting from across the UK to Liverpool.

The exhibition of all the artists selected for the longlist will be held at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool between16 Sep 2023—25 Feb 2024. 

The Shortlisted Artists

Paintings by Nicholas Baldion, Graham Crowley, Emily Kraus, Damian Taylor and Francisco Valdes shortlisted from more than 3,000 entries.

Links to their websites are embedded in their names below.

Those not winning the first prize of £25,000 will each be awarded £2,500.

The Selectors gave each painting careful scrutiny

The 2023 jury - Alexis Harding, Chila Kumari Singh Burman MBE, Marlene Smith, The White Pube and Yu Hong – chose the prize winners and the long list of other exhibiting artists from more than 3,000 entries – the most the John Moores Painting Prize has ever received.

From large scale canvases, bold in brush strokes and colour, to exquisitely detailed pieces, the exhibition covers a wide range of styles, united by their use of paint.  

By way of introduction (from me)

• there are four "technique paintings" (for want of a better term) - only one of which interests me
• and a genuine original which has both substance and impact.
• my favourites are by the two youngest painters.

Nicholas Baldion: Social Murder: Grenfell In Three Parts

Social Murder in Three Parts (Front View) by Nicholas Baldion
- which implies there's also a back view

Social Murder: Grenfell in Three Parts tells the story of what happened before and after the 2017 fire at the Grenfell Tower in London. The middle panel shows the tower on the night of the fire. When the triptych is closed, the green heart - a symbol of Grenfell - is visible. The writing on the reverse was added by members of the local community nearby to Grenfell Tower. It stands as a testimony, which is to be added to as the painting continues its journey.

Nicholas Baldion 

• Education
• Portraiture Diploma, Heatherley School of fine art. 2018-2020
• Drawing Intensive Term. Royal Drawing School. 2017.
• Fine Art BA, Chelsea College of Art and Design. 2009-2012.
• Baldion has exhibited work throughout the UK, including at Mall Galleries, the People’s History Museum and The Jewish Museum in London. 
• He has been identified as an artist to watch in terms of selection for specific group exhibitions and prizes and awards received to date.
• A social realist concern has always been the basis for his work.

Always there is a concern with the human subject and a search for the way in which it is painted to meet the subject matter of the painting. To find a form which best does it justice. Nicholas Baldion

My commentary

This is a really powerful painting - I cannot emphasise this enough. I don't have any details as to how big it is - but I rather suspect it's large simply because of the amount of content and its complexity. I'm particularly struck by the fact it's an interactive piece with input from those affected. That I think is a first for the John Moores Painting Prize. 

Having personally watched the Grenfell Tower Fire through the night (having fallen asleep and woken up in the early hours and switched to the news to get the headlines before going to bed - which didn't happen....) his painting of the burning building has enormous impact - just as seeing it happen live made a huge impact on me. You cannot go to bed when you see it happening in front of your eyes - you have to bear witness. This painting bears witness to the whole process of what happened before the fire, the fire and what has happened since and it is totally uncompromising. 

I listened to the entire Enquiry via the BBC's summary podcast and consequently recognise a lot of the content of the painting and the players, the names and the outstanding issues before and after.

Personally, I think this is not just the winner - but an outstanding winner - and that the painting will make national news headlines if it does in fact win.  

I can also think of a number of parallels to other important paintings recording important social history (from Picasso's Guenica to The Allegory of Good and Bad Government by Ambrogio Lorenzetti) which are extremely well known.

I've previously highlighted Nicholas Baldion on this blog a number of times in relation to his selection for exhibitions or awards and prizes. Always a good sign if I say so myself. I also highlighted the last winner too prior to her win!

Nicholas Baldion - prizewinner at NEAC Annual Exhibition 2020 
(he was the NEAC Scholar in 2021)

Graham Crowley - Light Industry

Light Industry by Graham Crowley

Light Industry is inspired by luminosity in painting. The artist has always been fascinated by paintings like those of Manet. The way in which the image and the painting as its own object can be seen simultaneously – fused together as a single, luminous entity – is one of painting’s defining characteristics.

Graham Crowley

• Born in Romford, Essex in 1950
• Art Education:
• 1968 – 69 Foundation Studies, St Martin's School of Art, London
• 1969 – 72 Diploma in Art & Design, St Martin's School of Art, London
• 1972 – 75 MA (RCA), Royal College of Art, London
• 1978-85 – Visiting lecturer in painting, RCA.
• Crowley worked originally as an abstract painter but began to paint figuratively in the 1970s.
• His work has been shown extensively in England and Europe, including exhibitions at the Venice and Paris biennales and at The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 
• He is included in a number of public collections and has also completed several large-scale public commissions. 
• He has been living and working in Suffold since 2014.
• He has had a painting selected for The John Moores Painting Prize Exhibition in 1976, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1993, 2004, 2006, 2016 - and 2023!

My commentary

I've got the big versions of the images of these paintings and this one has been produced by wiping paint in different directions to create a background - and then drawing into it while it's still wet. It's a neat and effective painting technique and worth highlighting - but I'm not sure it does enough to merit winning the first prize.

Emily Kraus - Stochastic 14

Stochastic 14 by Emily Kraus

Kraus works inside a cubic scaffold structure around which she stretches a canvas loop. It is a shelter, a constraint, a tabernacle and a boundary. The mechanism itself — rolling bars and canvas with no end — is a metaphor for the cyclical world. To create an organic image within a rigid system whose nature is to make repetitive marks requires listening, attention and rebellion.

Emily Kraus

• Born 1995 in New York
• BA in Religious Studies from Kenyon College (2017)
• Painting MA from the Royal College of Art in London (2022)
• represented by The Sunday Painter Gallery in London. 
• Kraus has an extensive background in meditative, yogic and somatic practices which impacts the pace and movement with which she creates.

The Stochastic series is comprised of three-meter paintings which I make on a cubic mechanism I have engineered for this purpose. This construction severely limits my ability to see the work while I'm making it. It is like painting with blinders on, only able to see one foot of canvas at a time. I hold the memory of surrounding marks as I focus on what I can see and apply paint with an educated yet constantly surprised eye. This process forces me to remain with the present moment. This linear limitation of time is akin to the process of composing a musical score–only hearing one note at a time yet fitting it into the memory of its place in the score.

My commentary:

I rather like this one - mainly because I can't work out how she did it when I looked at it - but I do now!  I can only think she must be a highly disciplined painter with a very strong visual imagination of what is possible.

PS For those of you who have forgotten, a stochastic process or system is connected with random probability.

This is my second favourite painting.

Damian Taylor - Other Light

Other Light by Damian Taylor

Other Light is described as “something about time and something about light,” and about unfixing historical attempts to fix things that are always in motion. It explores layers and sedimentation—sedimentations of organic life, rock, paint, time, along with painting and what it can be in a world saturated with images on screens. The painting is about photography and its history, magic and banality - and a little bit about men explaining things to women.

Damian Taylor works in London, in a studio beside the River Thames. 

• Education:
• He studied at Chelsea College of Art, 
• followed by an MA at the Slade School of Fine Art. 
• He also holds a practice-led doctorate from the University of Oxford, where he currently teaches. 
• He has received fellowships from Oxford and Yale and published in journals such as October, Oxford Art Journal, British Art Studies, and Sculpture Journal.

My commentary

Very much an academic approach is displayed on his website. Which I know is appreciated by academics - but I'm not sure how much it resonates with the wider public - and me.

Which is a longwinded way of saying that while I’m intrigued by technology and believe it a fundamental aspect of what it is to be human, I’ve never had a smartphone, a social media profile, or an Instagram account for my work, and I make no apology if this website is frustrating or incomprehensible when viewed on a smartphone. (his website)

Francisco Valdes - Champagne Cascade I

Champagne Cascade by Francisco Valdes

Champagne Cascade I combines textures, surfaces and colours to produce sensations that images and figures alone would never reach. It explores the photographic medium from different angles, often disregarding its usual applications and choosing to subjectify other aspects apart from the content, such as techniques, materials and processes.

Francisco Valdes is a Chilean-born artist, who is now based in the UK. 

• He holds an MFA from Goldsmiths College 
• he currently lives and works in London. 
• From 2003 to 2005 he attended the postgraduate studio programme at the Jan van Eyck Akademie in the Netherlands. 
• Since 1990 he has held more than 20 solo shows.

My commentary

His Instagram account suggests he's preoccupied with creating paintings of graphical versions of photos. That may interest some - but it doesn't do anything for me. I like his painting - but it lacks weight and substance. It's another 'technique' painting.

About the John Moores Painting Prize

The John Moores Painting Prize has awarded more than £685,000 in prize money across 31 exhibitions, which have showcased more than 2,350 works of art. It presents a rich history of post-war painting in Britain. The first exhibition was held only six years after the Walker Art Gallery re-opened following the Second World War. 

Past prize winners include 

• David Hockney (1967), 
• Mary Martin (1969), 
• Lisa Milroy (1989), 
• Peter Doig (1993), 
• Keith Coventry (2010), 
• Rose Wylie (2014), 
• Michael Simpson (2016), 
• Jacqui Hallum (2018) and 
• most recently Kathryn Maple (2020). 

Sir Peter Blake, winner of the competition’s Junior Prize in 1961, is Patron of the Prize. 

2020 John Moores Painting Prize winner Kathryn Maple’s winning painting ‘The Common’ is now part of the permanent collection at the Walker Art Gallery. She also held her first solo display at the gallery, Under a Hot Sun, earlier in 2023. 

For further information on the John Moores Painting Prize 2023 exhibition and to book tickets, visit www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/jmpp-2023